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CNN's Drew Griffin and Time magazine investigate what's behind the high cost of medical bills in America. They find a family who was charged hundreds of thousands of dollars for items used during treatment at a hospital, like the paper cup that holds a patient's pills.
Last March Bob Weinkauf found himself in the ICU struggling to breath. After four days of treatment, the hospital was telling his wife Becky that insurance would not even come close to covering the costs of his care. She says she remembers shaking after the conversation, unsure of what to do.
Weinkauf's bills, totaling about $474,000, were listed in broad categories with few details about the specific charges. He decided to find out what exactly made his hospital stay so costly. The answer was in the price tag of every little or big item he touched or was given – tissues, a urine bottle, a cup he spit in, and most other services and supplies he needed.
Pat Palmer has made a career battling hospitals over outrageous invoices like the one the Weinkaufs are facing. She's helping them fight the charges that could ultimately take them the rest of their lives to pay.
Read more on The extraordinary cost of getting sick in America
Watch Part II of the report:
Some health costs are unavoidable but others are not. Companies want to make money. Even non-profits are not there to lose money. Want to cut health costs? Then stop smoking, eat right and exercise. How much of these costs are due to people not taking care of themselves and then whining about the costs of their triple bypass surgery or treatments for Type II diabetes. Where's the personal responsibility in all this?
Out health Insurance system is sucks. Period. And no one is serious to fix it up.. everyone is point the political score and that's it...
As a Canadian I cannot comprehend what I'm reading here, it's so foreign to me. It's bad enough having to deal with an insurance company when you car is stolen or you get into an accident, but to have to deal with one concerning your health must be the ultimate stress! You can call us socialists all you want, but at least collectively we take care of each other in Canada.
probably $73,836 to wait in the waiting room. $1,790 for using the right arm rest of the chair. another $7,600 for the pen they used to sign papers. $250 for the actually care.
I know someone who is in sales for a "non-profit" (huge company) medical insurance company in California. This salesperson "earns" a salary of approximately $300,000.00 annually and the bonus this person received for 2012 was $250,000.00. So, someone selling medical insurance policies receives more than $500,000.00 annually. Makes me wonder what the upper management salaries must be. Hmmmm..where does the profit end up?
Here in Canada we have government health care. What is "government"? It's us! I live in Alberta. We pay NO monthly ins fees. We pay No deductible. I see my doctor when I am sick. I don't call my mayor, MLA, MP or the Prime Minister. I call my doctor. What to do is decided by my doctor and me. PERIOD!
I contracted malaria while overseas. It hit when I was back home. Two days of intensive care and 6 more in basic room. Lots of IV's, drugs and around the clock care by some really professional staff.
My bill???....ZERO, Nada, Zip
In Canada, we ALL contribute to our ins program and we manage it ourselves so we don't have to negotiate with hospitals or ravenous ins companies. People have the clout, not the "for profits"
I don't understand how the most powerful country in the world can live it's sick and ailing at the mercy of so called free enterprise.
Thank God there's a 49th parallel between us. I hope you folks sort it out soon.
Sorry to say this, but as a foreigner living in America from yes, a third world nation that has the one of best and cheapest medical care in the world, some of the best doctors, nurses and charity hospital systems, I find that Americans are too naive, and careless about the charade of the joke of the medical systems here in the US.
1. All hospitals are non-profit on paper – yet they charge an arm and a leg, literally.
2. Insurance companies play dubious games with you. They are an unnecessary bureaucracy.
3. Many doctors & service providers are empathetic and carign, but they are stuck in a system with perverse incentives.
4. Lawyer are like hyenas, exploiting the chaos.
5. Medicare pays a 200K for a 91 year old in his last year of life, who himself has only paid half of that throughout his life, yet the govt. can't fund schools or basic medical care.
Wake up America – what is wrong with you all here?
We need to address the "big" issue: medical care is not part of our free market, and therefore the foxes have taken over this henhouse to the tune of billions. There is a huge difference between covering costs and being "not-for-profit" and working in a free marketplace where the consumer can shop for better pricing. If you are in an ER, you are NOT shopping. Hospitals have worked hard to cover their tracks, hide their costs, and prevent patients from having reasonable care at a reasonable rate. And if some political hack cannot see the difference between fair and reasonable charges and egregious, massive overcharging of patients when they are most vulnerable in a life-or-death situation, then shame on them. Every "not-for-profit" hospital showing these kinds of profits, and with payrolls on this level, should be brought up on federal tax evasion charges, and the penalties applied to the outstanding charges they are using that are crushing our population.
Sickness makes money. A cure for cancer threatens the medical gravy train. Socialized medicine is the doctors greatest fear. Doctors in the United States are not motivated by helping people, they are motivated by greed. We need to completely destroy the status quo of the US health industry and start over from scratch.
Nowadays, even having insurance is not enough. Oh well, Republicans don't want regulation of ANY industry. To do so is an assault on capitalism, and regulation is socialism.
Just for starters there should be no such thing as "options" in health care, if you need a service and you have health insurance, whatever you need should be covered. "Options" are just a way for insurance companies to say you don't have the right coverage, how on earth can you know in advance what will happen to you 3 or 4 years from now? These companies have a gun to your head, just like the hospitals that make you sign a form saying that you will be responsible for your bill no matter how much or little your health insurance covers.
got that beat with a $987,429 40 page bill but at least I got a heart transplant to prove it
Re:story about hospital billing. It is not a bad thing for everyone to have coverage, but the bottom line is, who is going to make the insurances accountable for paying for the claims. A hospital has to play games w/the insurance and charge above and beyond what the actual cost are just to have the insurance pay pennies(if anything) on the claim as reimbursement. Even when the ins. does pay, they have no timeline to come back and retract the payment. If the hospital or doctor does not refund the payment, the ins. will deduct it out of the next pt. that has the same insurance. Sometimes it can be years after the payment was made, and the ins. will decide that they made an error in payment and they want it back.This is one of the reasons that pts are seeing the outrageous costs. The ins. companies are happy to take the premiums, but even if they "approve" a surgery or procedure it always states at the bottom "this is not a guarantee of payment" In the end it is the patient that suffers not only physically, but financially. Someone needs to make the insurance accountable
Its easy-get rid of the insurance companies like Aetna, Blue cross, etc , develop more HMOs like Kaiser who own their own hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, and pay the doctors salaries rather than pay-for-service, get rid of lawyers and malpractice (arbitration by independent board).There is no incentive for Kaiser to run up bills, members pay monthly fee half the cost of insurance company/PPOs with twice the service and quality of care (five stars). No $1M bills anymore, no waiting for appointments,and they have strong incentive to KEEP you healthy, since if things go wrong, they have to fix you at there expense.
If the Insurance companies all negotiate lower charges, wouldn't the health insurance requirement lower charges for people that otherwise wouldn't have health insurance? Am I missing something? How does Obamacare increase the cost of healthcare for everyone?
ah yes.. obamacare.. the miracle cure to bring socialism to medicine...
I wonder if you people are beginning to regret your votes yet?
you do realize that Obamacare is available for "catastrophic" cases right? so either the lawyers lied to get the family to pay legal bills, the hospital lied about what they could or would accept, the politicians lied, or I am completely wrong...
It would be awesome if the media would stop referring to the Affordable Care Act as "ObamaCare." That is not the name of the bill and it contributes to the dumbing down of Americans. Interestingly enough, critics of this Act said it was "taking away their freedom" by issuing an insurance mandate, and now here is CNN saying the bill doesn't do enough. You can't have it both ways people, and things just don't change overnight. It took 20+ years to get any kind of health reform through congress.
My 6 week old daughter had a 100.4 fever so we took her to her pediatrician. She instructed us to take her to the West Boca Medical Center emergency room, if the fever exceeded 101 degrees, which it did several hours later. My daughter was examined and diagnosed with RSV and pneumonia and subsequently admitted to the hospital pediatric care unit. She spent a week on a respirator and attached to a blood oxygen level monitor. The hospital bill was $35,750.64, which exceeded my "in-network" deductible of $11,400. A week later I got a bill from a seperate billing agency, Emergency Pediatric Services, for an additional $6,944.40. This bill included $2,115 for "initial hospital care", plus 6 days of "subsequent hospital care" at $728 per day, which I was told accounted for the individual doctor charges. An additional charge of $1,223, labeled "hospital discharge (more than 30 minutes)" was billed, as well. Having already exceeded my deductible, I assumed that this was an error so I called my insurance company. The humana agent that I spoke with told me that these charges were billed using a code by the billing agency that caused it to be billed as an "out-of-network" charge but that emergency room charges and doctor charged at a hospital that is "in-network, should be covered as an in-network charge. She said that she would resubmit the bill. The appeal was denied on the grounds that the billing code used labeled the charges as "out-of-network", so I contacted the billing agency. They told me that they would file the proper forms to adjust the charges. This appeal was also denied, so I called Humana back. Again they told me that they would not pay the charges. I appealed to the hospital to negotiate the charges but was told that they do NOT negotiate deductibles. They have since turned it over for collection and will not allow me to make monthly payments.
You should probably get a lawyer involved for the collection agency and file a complaint with your state's department of consumer affairs which should have an insurance complaint form. Even if you don't get a lawyer involved you can tell the collection agency that you dispute the debt and have filed a formal complaint against the insurance company and the hospital / billing group.
They will do their best to get people who don't fight for their rights to pay what they don't owe, but when you show you're serious if the issue is a billing code problem then they generally back down.
Good luck.
– Jordan
Huh. My mother kept the hospital bill from when my brother was born in 1950. It came to slightly over $50 for the entire stay. The biggest charge was $12.50 for the delivery room. Nursery care was $1.25 a day and the hospital room for my mother was $2.50 a day. There were a few other incidental expenses. My mother had a rough delivery so she stayed a few extra days. My dad's insurance cover 50% and he paid the remainder of the bill with a check when he picked my mother and brother up to bring them home.
How did we ever get from that to where we are now?
While I understand and sympathize with the family portrayed in the hospital overcharging storyline, I have to address a few issues that you failed to point out. First, I think a distinction should be made between large "for profit" hospitals and smaller rural hospitals/health facilities. The smaller hospital coffers are not overflowing with wildly overcharged profits. In most cases these hospitals, while usually one of the biggest employers in their community, are barely making enough "profits" to meet payroll. So, please do NOT paint all hospitals with such broad green strokes. Second, I noticed you never addressed the fact that, while sad, the family still needs to accept some responsibility for dropping what I can only assume was a standard, well-known insurance plan for a "discount" policy. I' ve worked in healthcare for 30 years and I see this happen quite often, where a patient thinks they'll save money by buying one of these cheaper plans only to find out it costs them dearly when they need to use it for an illness. Please be fair when reporting..not ALL hospitals overcharge, just as I'm sure not ALL news programs misrepresent stories.
My daughter broke her neck in a boating accident. We had excellent insurance through my husband's employer. The insurance company still refused to pay thousands of dollars on the bill once we met our deductible. Some of the charges denied were choices made by the doctors and ER staff that we had no say in. The insurance company even questioned how much medication they gave her, as if we had any say in that either. When I called to dispute the charges, a young man, who had no medical background whatsoever, was reading out of a book of codes, which automatically denied many items. He had veto power over thousands and thousands of dollars not covered even though he knew absolutely nothing about medical care. We almost lost our home over this. The insurance companies count on people not disputing charges – and let me tell you it can be a year long process to dispute these charges – so they get off without paying. We finally had to get an attorney and are still battling over this.
That's a lot of BS! Health insurance companies are nothing more than casinos where they weed out anyone who has the slightest risk of costing them money. Hospitals are merely there enablers. It's a corrupt system peopled by staff who are trained to make excuses for their horrible system. I welcome Obama Care and hope it drives a lot of these casinos out of business.
Not everyone has access multiple health plan choices. Many employers are offering only ONE choice: high deductible/co-insurance only plans...Take it or leave it.
Complete fraud, as someone else had posted, how come they are not charged with fraud?


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Woody Boaters Become Stars For Nautique Optix Woody Sunglasses.
On Friday last week, Texx and I went out on a special photo shoot for Nautique Optix all wood sunglasses. Very cool sunglasses made from exotic woods. More on that later. Today is all about our models, Karen Harrison and Matt Byrne, and of Course Miss Lisa. One of the magical things that can happen on film and only on film is the truth of ones soul shines. I have seen this a thousand times. A camera see's the truth for sure. Karen and Matt are some of the most generous and fun folks in the hobby. We arrived at Paul and Karen's house at 7AM. Matt was ready to go, Miss Lisa was all cleaned up. Karen had been told at 6 AM that she was going on a morning cruise and … oh by the way, being a model for some sunglasses. Needless to say, she literally rolled out of bed and walked out on the dock. The second she hopped into the boat the camera found her. Both Matt and her lit up the lens. And magic started to happen. Here is a fun tease to what will be an entire marketing campaign for Nautique Optix wood sunglasses. you can shop for a pair on there website.
Stay tuned for the rest of the shoot. Different boat, different day. Here is a tease. All photos are by Texx and Woody.

subset: commoncrawl


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Blog posts
- Some unexpected grain aliens from the Mediterranean and South Africa in Belgium. Or yet from Australia?
- On an extraordinary collection of alien plants on dredging sludge in Bilzen-Genk (Belgium) in 2017
- Tourists as an unexpected vector for the introduction of alien plants in Belgium
- Mini symposium on aliens and invasive species
- Not every Far Eastern mugwort is Artemisia verlotiorum!
- Yet another new neglected alien Rumex in Belgium: Rumex fueginus.
- Leonurus cardiaca subsp. villosus
- Dipsacus strigosus found in Belgium and possibly overlooked
Catalogue of Neophytes in Belgium
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DETROIT — The race to increase vehicle fuel economy is taking a toll on quality.
Owners of three-year-old vehicles are reporting more problems than they did a year ago, according to J.D. Power and Associates' annual survey of vehicle dependability. It's the first time since 1998 that the average number of problems per vehicle has increased.
J.D. Power, a California-based ratings and consulting company, said engine issues accounted for most of the increase in problems reported by the original owners of cars and trucks from the 2011 model year. Owners reported an average of 133 problems per 100 vehicles, up from 126 problems a year ago. Only problems within the prior 12 months are counted.
Automakers are rapidly implementing new engine technology to save fuel, including direct fuel injection and turbocharging, stop-start systems that automatically shut cars down at traffic lights and transmissions with higher gears. But those more complex systems can cause problems. David Sargent, J.D. Power's vice president of global automotive, said the company saw an increase in complaints about engine hesitation, rough transmission shifts and lack of power.
"While striving to reduce fuel consumption, automakers must be careful not to compromise quality," Sargent said in a statement.
The scores could improve in coming years because since 2011, automakers have worked to make new transmissions shift more smoothly, they've refined clunky stop-start systems and improved other fuel-saving technologies.
Lexus, Mercedes-Benz and Cadillac had the vehicles with the fewest reported problems. Lexus had just 68 problems per 100 vehicles, the only brand with fewer than 100 problems.
General Motors had the most winners in each segment, with eight, including the highest-ranked compact car, the Chevrolet Volt, and the highest-ranked pickup, the GMC Sierra. Toyota was second with seven segment winners, including the Toyota Camry minivan and Lexus ES luxury compact car.
Mini, Dodge and Land Rover had the most reported problems. Mini, the worst performer, had 185 problems per 100 vehicles.
The survey questioned 41,000 owners of 2011 model year vehicles between October and December of last year.


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Color Options from American Patchwork & Quilting August 2009
Tranquil Waters
Large Flying Geese combine with simple rectangles to make constructing this zigzag pattern a breeze.
Tranquil Water Color Option
Zigzag Baby Quilt
Flannels from Folk Tale Friends collection from Red Rooster Fabrics inspired a kid-friendly snuggler. This easy-to-piece quilt is perfect for a baby shower or children's birthday gift.
Royal Order
Set off a bevy of stars with richly colored, subtly pieced block backgrounds. Strip piecing combined with stitch-and-flip corners makes the construction easier than you might think.
Royal Order Color Option
Rail Fence & Stars
Reverse the placement of lights and darks, by using chocolate brown stars in pieced cream backgrounds from Mary's Chocolates by Mary Koval for Blank Quilting. A blue ombré inner border and red print stars in the sashing pick up flecks of blue and red sprinkled throughout many of the brown prints.
Click here for instructions needed to make this wall hanging.
Uncommon Beauty
Four-Patch units in a Nine-Patch arrangement are the focus of this antique quilt. The unknown quiltmaker wisely chose to fold under and hand-stitch the outer edges-an easier finish than working binding around myriad points.
Uncommon Beauty Color Option
Prism-Edge Table Topper
Make a one-block table topper that has an intricate ice cream border. Using the Traditions of Redwork, Blackwork, Indigo collection by Henry Glass & Co. resulted in a graphic two-color quilt with just a hint of red.
Click here for instructions needed to make this table topper.
One Fine Way
Appliquéing is easy with a fusible method and single flower block repeated nine times.
One Fine Way Color Option
Fast Flowers Appliqué
Need a faux headboard for a little girl's twin bed? Make three blocks, arrange them in a horizontal row, and add borders to make a cute-as-can-be wall hanging that would look adorable above a bed. Fabrics are from the Juliana collection by Sue Zipkin for Clothworks.
Click here for instructions needed to make this wall hanging.
Rhythm & Blues
Think the blocks in this quilt are set diagonally? Take a closer look and you'll discover two simple block designs straight-set in a cleverly planned color arrangement.
Rhythm & Blues Color Option
1930s Inspired Table Topper
Give a new quilt old-fashioned appeal by combining 1930s prints from the Momma's Apron Strings collection by RJR Fabrics and Hints of Prints 4 by Darlene Zimmerman for Robert Kaufman Fabrics. The light areas are great for showcasing quilting designs.
Click here for instructions needed to make this table topper.
Baby Talk
Polka dot, star, and toile flannels combine for a snuggly crib quilt. You can vary the kaleidoscope design depending on where you place your lights and darks.
Baby Talk Color Option
Big Print Wall Hanging
A bright and bold wall hanging mixes graphic prints from the Del Hi collection by Valori Wells for FreeSpirit. Turning two of the identical blocks 90 degrees (the upper right and lower left) creates the effect of a kaleidoscope that seems to shape-shift before your eyes.
Click here for instructions needed to make this wall hanging.
Tile Style
Inspiration can come in the most unlikely of places. While on a quilt retreat, the designer of this stunning batik throw was captivated by the twists and turns of a tiled auditorium floor.
Tile Style Color Option
Easy Floral Wall Hanging
Sophisticated florals peek through a trellis of cream and green tone-on-tones in this wall hanging. The uneven weave in the Laurel Cottage collection by Marianne Elizabeth for Benartex gives the fabrics the look of linen. Look for a curvy quilting pattern to both echo the scrolls in some of the prints and reiterate the pieced green "circular" shapes.
Click here for instructions needed to make this wall hanging.
Dot to Dot
Don't be intimidated by appliqué! The gently curved edges of large circles makes this a simple-to-sew quilt.
Dot to Dot Color Option
Dinosaur Baby Quilt
In just a day you can stitch up this whimsical quilt for a budding paleontologist. A dash of black and white unify bright prints from Marble Mania by Patrick Lose and I Dig Dinos! by Lloyds & Barton, both for Timeless Treasures.
Steeped in Tradition
Give the classic Rail Fence block an exotic twist with an innovative teacup block and a scrappy array of Asian-inspired prints.
Steeped in Tradition Color Option
Asian-Inspired Wall Hanging
Plates and flatware are turned into graphic patterns in the Lizzy Dish collection by Elizabeth House for Andover Fabrics. Pair the funky fabrics, along with Dimples tone-on-tones, also from Andover, in this 34-1/2x40-1/2" wall hanging.
Click here for instructions needed to make this wall hanging.


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Description: DMC Pearl Cotton is a highly mercerized, twisted, non-divisible lustrous cotton thread on a ball for Embroidery, Needlepoint, Smocking, Applique, Crochet and more. This soft, silky thread does not fluff or kink and provides volume and dimension. Recommended for crochet hooks size 7(US). 100% colorfast. 100% cotton.


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Who first disclosed the targeting of conservative groups by the IRS?
Pat Cunningham
The question in the headline above is one the right-wing conspiratorialists seem never to ask themselves.
Who blew the whistle on the IRS?
Was it investigative reporters from the mainstream media, as was the case with the Watergate scandal? No.
Was it Fox News or any other conservative news outlet? No.
Was it some member of Congress? No.
Was it some Republican activist? No.
Was it some conscience-stricken leaker at the White House? No.
So who did it?
Answer: The IRS did it.
The inspector general of the IRS had quietly investigated evidence of the targeting of conservative groups, and ...


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Police photographer faces discipline for Boston bomb suspect photos
A state police sergeant who released striking photos of the capture of the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings faces a hearing to determine if he will be suspended until an internal investigation is complete.
Massachusetts State Police spokesman David Procopio says the agency didn't authorize Sgt. Sean Murphy to release the photos to Boston Magazine and won't release them to other media.
He says Murphy has been relieved of duty for one day and there will be a hearing to decide if he will be suspended until the internal investigation is complete. He did not say when the hearing will be.
Murphy told Boston Magazine he was furious over a Rolling Stone cover photo he believes glamorizes suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (joh-HAHR' tsahr-NEYE'-ehv). He says his photos show "the real Boston bomber."
A police photographer, furious with a Rolling Stone cover photo he believes glamorizes the surviving Boston Marathon suspect, released gritty images Thursday from the day he was captured.
Photos released to Boston Magazine by Massachusetts State Police tactical photographer Sgt. Sean Murphy show a downcast, disheveled Dzhokhar Tsarnaev with the red dot of a sniper's rifle laser sight boring into his forehead.
The pictures were taken when Tsarnaev was captured April 19, bleeding and hiding in a dry-docked boat in a Watertown backyard.
Murphy said in a statement to Boston Magazine that Tsarnaev is evil and that his photos show the "real Boston bomber, not someone fluffed and buffed for the cover of Rolling Stone magazine."
The April 15 bombing killed three people and injured more than 260. Massachusetts Institute of Technology officer Sean Collier was allegedly killed April 18 by Tsarnaev and his brother, Tamerlan, who died following a shootout with police later that evening.
State police spokesman David Procopio said in a statement Thursday that the agency did not authorize the release of the photos to Boston Magazine and will not release them to other media.
Boston Magazine editor John Wolfson, who wrote the story accompanied by Murphy's photos, later tweeted and reported on the magazine website that Murphy was "relieved of duty" and had a hearing next week. Asked by The Associated Press about Murphy's job status, Procopio said in an email that the state police will conduct an internal investigation into Murphy's release of the photos.
Murphy, who did not return a message from the AP, said in his statement to Boston Magazine that Rolling Stone's cover photo, a softly-lit image of a brooding Tsarnaev, insults officers killed in the line of duty, their colleagues and their families by glamorizing the "face of terror."
"It also could be an incentive to those who may be unstable to do something to get their face on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine," he said.
Rolling Stone said the cover story on Tsarnaev was part of its "long-standing commitment to serious and thoughtful coverage of the most important political and cultural issues of our day."
Boston Magazine printed more than a dozen photos from the day Tsarnaev was captured, including images of police during the manhunt and Tsarnaev as he was captured and taken away by ambulance.
Three images showed Tsarnaev as he emerged from the boat, head bowed, with red smudges and streaks on his clothing and the boat.
Two images showed the red dot of the laser sight in the middle of his forehead and just above his left eye. The other showed the dot on the top of his head as he buries his face in his arms.
In his statement, Murphy said the capture played out like a television show, but he hopes his photos show it was "as real as it gets."
"Officer Sean Collier did give his life. These were real people, with real lives, with real families," he said. "And to have this cover dropped into Boston was hurtful to their memories and their families.
"I know from first-hand conversations that this Rolling Stone cover has kept many of them up — again. It's irritated the wounds that will never heal — again," he wrote. "There is nothing glamorous in bringing more pain to a grieving family."
Online: http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2013/07/18/tsarnaev/


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Morning Minutes: April 21
Morning Minutes: April 21
Word of the Day
Obloquy OB-luh-kwee (noun) Censure, blame, or abusive language aimed at a person or thing, especially by numerous persons or by the general public - dictionary.com
Website of the Day
60 Facts About The Queen
Set up for Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee last year, this page is full of facts about the British monarch. She's had more than 30 corgis in her lifetime!
Number to Know
61: Years Queen Elizabeth II has ruled England.
This Day in History
April 21, 1989: Chinese students begin Tiananmen Square protests, which last until troops are ordered to disperse the protesters on June 3.
Today's Featured Birthday
English monarch Queen Elizabeth II (87)
Daily Quote
"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing." - George Bernard Shaw


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Can digital rights management technology stop the unauthorized spread of copyrighted content? Ten years ago this month, four engineers argued that it can't, forever changing how the world thinks about piracy. Their paper, "The Darknet and the Future of Content Distribution" (available as a .doc here) was presented at a security conference in Washington, DC, on November 18, 2002.
By itself, the paper's clever and provocative argument likely would have earned it a broad readership. But the really remarkable thing about the paper is who wrote it: four engineers at Microsoft whose work many expected to be at the foundation of Microsoft's future DRM schemes. The paper's lead author told Ars that the paper's pessimistic view of Hollywood's beloved copy protection schemes almost got him fired. But ten years later, its predictions have proved impressively accurate.
The paper predicted that as information technology gets more powerful, it will grow easier and easier for people to share information with each other. Over time, people will assemble themselves into what the authors called the "darknet." The term encompasses formal peer-to-peer networks such as Napster and BitTorrent, but it also includes other modes of sharing, such as swapping files over a local area network or exchanging USB thumb drives loaded with files.
Once a popular piece of information—say, a movie, a song, or a software title—"leaks" into the darknet, stopping its spread becomes practically impossible. This, the engineers realized, had an important implication: to prevent piracy, digital rights management had to work not just against average users, but against the most tech-savvy users on the planet. It only takes a single user to find a vulnerability in a DRM scheme, strip the protection from the content, and release the unencrypted version to the darknet. Then millions of other users merely need to know how to use ordinary tools such as BitTorrent to get their own copies.
Trusted computing or treacherous computing?
Ars Technica talked to Peter Biddle, the paper's lead author, last week. The basic premise of the paper came from an e-mail Biddle circulated within Microsoft in the late 1990s. The term "darknet" was coined by co-author Bryan Willman, another Microsoft engineer. Two other Microsoft engineers, Paul England and Marcus Peinado, contributed to it.
At the time they wrote the paper, Biddle and his co-authors were working on Microsoft's "Trusted Windows" project, an effort to provide hardware-level authentication features that could make PCs resistant to tampering even by those who have physical access and control. The initiative would go under a variety of names, including Palladium, TCPA, and the Next-Generation Secure Computing Base.
Biddle, who now works at Intel but stressed that he was speaking only for himself in our interview, told us that it was a project fraught with political challenges. Inside Microsoft, people bristled at the implication that vanilla Windows was untrustworthy. Outside Microsoft, critics charged that Biddle's project represented the beginning of the end for the PC as an open platform. They feared that Microsoft would use the technology to exert control over which software could be executed on Windows PCs, freezing out open source operating systems and reducing users' freedom to run the software of their choice.
One widely discussed application for Biddle's technology was digital rights management. Building DRM atop an open, general-purpose computing platform is an inherently difficult problem. Every DRM scheme requires distributing encryption keys or other secrets to users' devices without the users themselves having access to them. But on an open PC, the user has the ability to inspect and modify essentially all data stored on the device, so DRM schemes are inherently insecure.
It was "very challenging for the PC industry to make the same kinds of statements around how secure data could be on the PC compared to closed devices like CE boxes," Biddle told us. Many hoped (or feared) that a "trusted" computing platform could dramatically improve a DRM scheme's tamper-resistance by preventing a machine's owner from inspecting sensitive encryption keys or modifying DRM code. But preventing users from modifying DRM schemes also inherently meant reducing users' control over the devices they owned. The risk of Microsoft locking down everyone's PC provoked an online backlash, with critics calling the technology "treacherous computing."
Biddle says that backlash "took us completely by surprise." He told us that his team didn't "realize the level of entrenchment and fear" about the ways Microsoft might misuse the technology. In his view, the public overreacted to what was designed to be an application-agnostic security technology. "A lot of the things that were said about trustworthy computing being treacherous were actually impossible," he told us.
"I almost got fired"
Biddle says that he and his team realized early on that DRM technology would never succeed in shutting down piracy. He hoped that writing a paper saying so would reassure Microsoft's critics in the technical community that Redmond wasn't planning to lock down the PC in order to satisfy Hollywood. And by making it clear that the people behind Microsoft's "trusted computing" push were not fans of DRM, Biddle hoped he could persuade the technical community to consider other, more benign applications of the technology he was building.
Biddle couldn't be too candid about the link between his paper and the technology he was building. Explicitly admitting that DRM schemes built on "Trusted Windows" wouldn't stop piracy might make it harder for Microsoft to persuade content providers to license its products for Microsoft's technology platforms. Biddle hoped that releasing his paper at a technical security conference would allow him to send a "dog whistle" to the technology community without raising the ire of Hollywood.
It didn't work out that way. "I almost got fired over the paper," Biddle told Ars. "It was extremely controversial." Biddle tried to get buy-in from senior Microsoft executives prior to releasing the paper. But he says they didn't really understand the paper's implications—and particularly how it could strain relationships with content companies—until after it was released. Once the paper was released, Microsoft's got stuck in bureaucratic paralysis. Redmond neither repudiated Biddle's paper nor allowed him to publicly defend it.
At the same time, "the community we thought would draw a connection never drew the connection," Biddle said, referring to anti-DRM activists. "Microsoft was taking so much heat around security and trustworthy computing, that I was not allowed to go out and talk about any of this stuff publicly. I couldn't explain 'guys, we're totally on your side. What we want is a program that's open.'"
A losing battle
While Biddle and his colleagues didn't succeed in allaying the fears of Palladium's critics, the paper's central arguments have held up well. The authors predicted that the emergence of the darknet would produce a technological and legal arms race. They thought content companies and law enforcement would attack those aspects of the darknet that were most centralized, but that the darknet would adapt through greater decentralization. And they predicted that efforts to build secure DRM schemes would continue to fail. All of their predictions have continued to hold true over the last decade.
Both content companies and the US government have pursued increasingly aggressive anti-piracy strategies. The Recording Industry Association of America sued thousands of alleged file-sharers during the last decade, and content companies have sued numerous file-sharing startups out of existence. In 2010, the federal government got into the act, using the powers of the recently passed PRO-IP Act to seize domains and other assets of alleged pirate sites. And they have even begun to arrest key figures in file-sharing networks.
Yet these increased enforcement efforts have barely slowed down the darknet's momentum. A key development has been the emergence of "locker sites" that host infringing files and "link sites" that provide pointers to those files.
"The thing about the locker and link sites is that they can be very lightweight," Biddle told us. They are "not that hard to replicate because they are basically a database." That makes the network as a whole much more robust to law enforcement efforts to shut it down: close down one site and two more pop up in its place.
And while BitTorrent and Megaupload get all the attention, Biddle notes that there are other file-sharing techniques that the government is never going to stop. "Teenagers and twenty-somethings I know routinely will go over to a friend's house with a terabyte drive to swap stuff," he said. They choose the "sneakernet" approach less out of fear of liability than because it's so convenient. "You can have a ton of content on a terabyte drive," he noted.
Yet the content industry continues to try, and fail, to produce secure DRM schemes. Biddle believes this strategy has proved counterproductive because it inconveniences legitimate customers without stopping piracy.
"I'm now finding that for some kinds of content, the illegal is clearly outperforming legal," Biddle said. "That blows me away. I pay for premium cable. It's easier to use BitTorrent to watch Game of Thrones. HBO Go is trying very hard to do a good job," he said, but the user experience just isn't as good. Because HBO Go is a streaming service, he said, it's more vulnerable to network congestion than simply downloading the entire episode from the darknet.


text:
You've no doubt heard of Crohn's disease, a chronic inflammatory disorder of the bowels. My heart goes out to people with Crohn's because it can be very debilitating and difficult to live with.
However, there's another condition with a very similar name, and this is the one I want to talk about today. It's not easy to discuss, but I need to face my fears and tell my story.
My friends, I suffer from Crone's disease. I don't have full-blown Crone's yet, but it's just a matter of time.
Medical literature on the subject is scant; patients generally present with very vague signs and symptoms. Because there are no tests for Crone's, proper diagnosis can be made only when the disease is already advanced.
I vividly remember when I noticed the first symptom. I was at a bar and the music was really loud. Probably no louder than the music at other bars I had been to, but on this night the volume really bothered me. I was seized by the overwhelming urge to tell the bartender to "turn down that fucking noise." This was accompanied by a strong desire to reflect loudly and at length on how much better the music was when I was in high school and college and how "bands today all sound the same."
I had never experienced anything like that before. It scared me.
Several years later, another alarming symptom reared its ugly head. I was out with some friends. We had a great time carousing but after so much debauchery I needed to call it a night. I looked at my watch. It was 11pm. That can't be right, I thought. It's got to be around 4am. My watch must have stopped. How could this be, that after only a few hours I was tired and wanted to go home?
I didn't know it then, but I was in the early stages of Crone's.
Other symptoms emerged recently. Not long ago I used the phrase, "Kids today have NO IDEA." I sometimes mutter under my breath at loud groups of young'uns in their 20s and 30s. And when people discuss celebrities, I frequently have no clue who they're talking about. Blake Lively? Who's he?
I babble about how U2 was really great "back in the day." I bemoan the fact that people born in the 80s and 90s are co-opting The Breakfast Club and calling it a movie for their generation. Yeah, well, I've got news for you, you little punks: you can't possibly know what it was really like back then. I was there, bitches. So why don't you just run along and play with your Xbox or something?
Doctors don't talk about prognosis when it comes to people with Crone's. But I'm not stupid. I know what's in store for me.
I'll start saying "I'm too old for this shit" more often. My joints will make odd cracking noises, like an old house settling. It will take me ten minutes to get up after sitting on the floor. Certain foods will no longer agree with me but I'll insist on eating them anyway and complaining when my stomach hurts and I can't sleep. My glasses will crap out and I'll be forced to read stuff by holding it either really far away or right in front of my eyes.
I won't even get into the visible manifestations of Crone's disease because they're too numerous and horrifying. But I will say this: grey hair is associated with an increased risk of Crone's. As you know, I already have a touch of hag. My future is grim. Eventually I'll have to accept my fate.
For those of you who think you might have Crone's, please know you're not alone. You shouldn't suffer in silence. Instead, you should bitch and moan to anyone who will stand still long enough to listen. It's the only way.


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Book News: Shakespeare Was A Tax Evader And Food Hoarder, Researchers Say
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
The daily lowdown on books, publishing, and the occasional author behaving badly.
- Research from scholars at Aberystwyth University in the U.K. suggests that William Shakespeare was prosecuted for evading taxes and for hoarding grain during a famine and then reselling it at inflated prices. Jayne Archer, A co-author of the study, told The Sunday Times [paywall protected] that "there was another side to Shakespeare besides the brilliant playwright — as a ruthless businessman who did all he could to avoid taxes, maximise profits at others' expense and exploit the vulnerable — while also writing plays about their plight to entertain them." As many have pointed out, this gives new meaning to those lines from Shakespeare's Coriolanus: "They ne'er cared for us yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses crammed with grain."
- A new biography of Derrida asks, "What would a biography of Jacques Derrida have to look like to be a Derridean biography?" File under: questions best left unanswered.
- Alexander Nazaryan writes about Thomas Pynchon's novel V. for The New Yorker: "I advocate surrender to Pynchon; letting your mind toss on the wild currents of his language is a lot more enjoyable than treating his novels like puzzles, wondering where the pieces fit: Who is Rachel Owlglass? Why are we in Egypt?"
- Proust's notebooks capture his exacting self-editing process.
- Half of a Yellow Sun author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie complained about V.S. Naipaul to the London Evening Standard: "I've become very tired of this nonsense where he's supposed to be the best writer in the world. ... God bless him, I wish him well, but I think that just because you're an old man who's nasty doesn't mean that we shouldn't actually take your work apart." Her words weren't quite as cutting as those of Derek Walcott in his poem "The Mongoose": "I have been bitten, I must avoid infection/Or else I'll be as dead as Naipaul's fiction."
The Best Books Coming Out This Week:
- Kate Atkinson's Life After Life is the story of the many lives of Ursula Todd, an Englishwoman who dies in dozens of ways in this inventive novel. It also made NPR's Scott Simon cry.
- James Salter, as Katie Roiphe recently pointed out in Slate, is a literary powerhouse who very few people have heard of. His latest novel, All That Is, about a WWII veteran who returns home, just might fix that.


text: This course is for you if you are looking to dive deeper into Six Sigma or strengthen and expand your knowledge of the basic components of green belt level of Six Sigma and Lean. Six Sigma skills are widely sought by employers both nationally and internationally. These skills have been proven to help improve business processes and performance. This course will introduce you to the purpose of Six Sigma and its value to an organization. You will learn about the basic principles of Six Sigma and Lean. Your instructors will introduce you to, and have you apply, some of the tools and metrics that are critical components of Six Sigma. This course will provide you with the basic knowledge of the principles, roles, and responsibilities of Six Sigma and Lean. Every module will include readings, videos, and a quiz to help make sure you understand the material and concepts that are studied. You will also have the opportunity to participate in discussions and peer review exercises to give you the opportunity to apply the material to your daily life. Registration includes online access to course content, projects, and resources but does not include the companion text The Certified Six Sigma Green Belt Handbook (2nd edition). The companion text is NOT required to complete the assignments. However, the text is a recognized handbook used by professionals in the field. Also, it is a highly-recommended text for those wishing to move forward in Six Sigma and eventually gain certification from professional agencies such as American Society for Quality (ASQ).


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text:
"Inside The Secret Budapest Meeting Of 'Racial Realists'":
"The genesis of the event was an announcement by the National Policy Institute in Washington, which sees itself as a right-wing think tank. It is so far right that nobody in the political mainstream wants to be associated with it.""National Policy Institute" "Hungary Wants To Ban National Policy Institute Conference" So, obviously an American stunt (note that the National Policy Institute is connected to the Pioneer Fund, which is connected to the highest levels of the American establishment), and we ought to be considering the American origins of the new European Islamophobia (which, of course, is based on the Jewish concept of Islamophobia).
"The Bell Curve and the Pioneer Fund" Of course, The Bell Curve was heavily promoted by The New Republic. Sullivan's comical attempt at defending himself and TNR.
These mysterious Asian plane crashes - I'm wondering if the Americans have identified a 'terrorist' on board flights originating in Muslim countries and are shooting down whole planes as a 'targeted assassination'. Barry insists on his right to do such things, and the horror of it is completely within the scope of what we've seen Americans doing.
"Mysterious Chinese Blogger Predicted AirAsia Disappearance Two Weeks Ago"
"Why the Secrecy on the Mh17 Investigation"
The Saker:
"There is no doubt my mind that MH17 was shot down by a Ukrainian SU-25, possibly one of several Su-25s patrolling the skies that day to intercept a civilian airliner the downing of which was to become the "surprise" Poroshenko promised and which Kolomoiskii probably organized."


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Description: Print, sleeveless maxi dress in a relaxed style with a halterneck, an open back and side slits
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Ҡәҙер кисәһе.Гүзәл Ситдиҡова тәржемәһе
|Please see Ҡәҙер кисәһе.Гүзәл Ситдиҡова тәржемәһе hosted in Canada on Wikilivres.
The author of this work, published in 1953, died in 1953, so the work is in the public domain in countries and areas copyrighting for lifetime plus up to 50 years, including Canada. However, if published between 1923 and 1977 inclusive, the American non-acceptance of the rule of the shorter term, or the Copyright Term Extension Act if published in the USA with copyright notices and renewals as legally needed, would make this work still considered copyrighted for 95 years after publication, to expire at year end, i.e. to enter the public domain in the USA on January 1, 2049. If created through 1977 but published between 1978 and 2002 inclusive, this work would still considered copyrighted until at least 2047. If published outside the USA, the reason is usually due to the work having not entered the public domain through copyright expiration in its source country or area on January 1, 1996.


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Review for Bering 11139-564 unisex watch by Cecilia Andersson
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"Very happy with my new watch! It is reasonably large and stylish. Really fast delivery without problems."
Review for Bering 11139-564 unisex watch by Cecilia Andersson
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Organic Graphic Footie in Say What? (Lake)
Our Fit
Our organic baby clothing is quite true to weight, and is designed to be form-fitting and tailored to the body. Since cotton shrinks after the first machine wash/dry, we account for this shrinkage by cutting our clothing slightly longer than intended, so that they shrink down to the correct size. This applies to our kids and adult clothing as well. As such, we do not recommend sizing up unless the wearer is extremely tall/large for his or her size. If you find that you like the length of the garment prior to washing it, we recommend line drying to retain that length. Otherwise, feel free to pop it in the dryer to shrink it down slightly to its intended fit.
Baby Sizes
|4-7 lbs.
|0-3 Months
|7-12 lbs.
|3-6 Months
|12-16 lbs.
|6-9 Months
|16-19 lbs.
|9-12 Months
|19-22 lbs.
|12-18 Months
|22-25 lbs.
|18-24 Months
|25-28 lbs.
Newborn versus 0-3m:
Our Preemie-NB size is intended for 4 to 7 pound babies, and fits quite accurately. Our 0-3m size is intended for 7-12 lbs. and while definitely fit longer and be a little bit roomier than NB sizes, still offers a nice tailored fit in the torso and arms.
That said, all of our clothing is cut a little long to account for the shrinkage that will occur after first machine wash and dry since our garments are made with organic cotton with no synthetic blends. If you are looking for a form-fitting coming home outfit or a newborn photos outfit, we recommend the newborn size, with the understanding that you might need to line dry it if you feel that it is going to be too small for your baby once machine washed/dried. Otherwise, if you have other children who were born bigger than 7 pounds, we would recommend going with size zero to three months, as it will last longer than the newborn size. It's really a preference as to what you are hoping to use it for (immediate versus longer-term fit). :-)
Toddler/Kids' Sizes
Our toddler and kids' sizes fit very true-to-age and are cut generously long. We do not recommend sizing up unless your little one is extremely tall or big for his or her age. Some shrinkage (in length only) will occur in the dryer, but again we already account for this by cutting extra long.
Adult Men's Sizes
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|30-32 in.
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Our men's styles can be worn by women as well! Simply size down.
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Sizes XS and S can fit young teens/preteens, with a slightly looser fit than women.
We hope this helps! Start shopping our collections of organic cotton baby clothing and accessories to find the perfect piece for your little one! Contact us today with any questions you may have, as we are always happy to help.
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- made of G.O.T.S. certified 100% organic cotton
- produced with azo-free, non-toxic, eco-friendly dyes
- ethically made in India
- features chrome/lead/nickel-free snaps
- tagless for added comfort against baby's skin
- has a 3-snap back panel for easy dressing, with additional snaps from ankle to ankle for easy diaper changes
- offers a body-hugging fit to surely become your favorite outfit for any occasion/outing
- includes fold-over, gl'oved-sleeves (in sizes preemie/nb, 0-3m, and 3-6m) for added warmth and protection from self-scratching
- has rubber-dotted grip soles on all sizes to prevent slipping
- thoughtfully designed with elastic on back of ankles for a stay-in-place fit
- pairs perfectly with our cap and blanket for a sweet take-me-home outfit
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text:
Though the day dawns cool, the deck of NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) remains warm—a side effect of keeping 6.2 million gallons of water at a constant 86°F. I stare down into the largest indoor body of water in the world and feel a surge of vertigo. Here, astronauts practice for spacewalk missions at the International Space Station (ISS), and today I'll watch them do it.
The pool measures 202 feet long, 101 feet wide, and 40 feet deep, extending 20 feet down from the elevated deck and then an additional 20 feet below the floor level. Its wall and floor are white, though they're smudged and darkened from years of repositioning model test stands. Spread throughout the water are life-sized component mock-ups of the ISS, looking exactly like some giant child's Tinker Toy set. Refraction causes the perspective to bend sharply away until it's obscured by the reflection of the ceilings and walls.
How on earth do you simulate microgravity? Build the largest pool in the world and go swimming.
"Man, that is a deep looking pool," I say, leaning over to stare at the bottom of the clear water. My brain tries and fails to conjure up eloquence. It's busy, filled with thoughts of tumbling over the side.
The pool loses about 5,000 gallons per week in evaporation, and I can feel the moisture in the air. It's nothing like the awful humid summers we typically have in Houston, where the NBL is located, but the transition into the pool area does feel like passing through an insubstantial curtain. The air in the high bay smells faintly of chlorine, and it hums with pumps and machine noises. Scratchy PA announcements occasionally echo down from speakers in the distant ceiling.
"What's it like being underwater?" I ask my companion, safety diver Chris Peterman. The NBL has 28 full-time divers, all of whom work for Oceaneering, a company specializing in underwater engineering efforts.
"It's incredible diving," replies Peterman. "It takes a long time to sink in how large it is and how much stuff is in there."
Even the largest pool in the world isn't anywhere near large enough to hold the entire space station, though. The most recognizable feature of the space station is its backbone Integrated Truss Structure, which stretches longitudinally and holds the station's radiators and solar arrays. Eleven individual segments make up the truss; the NBL pool can hold only three of them end-to-end. The ISS is really, really big.
Whether you regard it as humankind's greatest laboratory or the costliest white elephant ever sold, the International Space Station remains an engineering marvel. Bolted together by men and women over more than a decade while skipping along at 17,500 miles per hour 200 miles up, the ISS is longer and wider than a football field, with a mass of almost 450 tons (though its precise mass varies depending on the amount of consumables currently on board). Its assembly required 37 space shuttle launches, and that's not counting the additional components launched by Russia, or the Soyuz launches to keep the station crewed, or the Progress launches to keep it supplied.
A total of 155 spacewalks over ten years were needed to connect the components together—2.5 times as many spacewalks as had previously occurred in the entire history of manned space flight. Every second of every one of those of those spacewalks had to be planned and then rehearsed dozens of times. Unfortunately for the astronauts and engineers, assembling things in microgravity differs from assembling them on Earth—in addition to the obvious problem of your tools floating away, the human mind isn't used to accounting for an object's weight and mass as separate properties. Spacewalk rehearsals therefore have to happen in as close an environment to microgravity as possible.
How on earth do you simulate microgravity? Two ways. First, you can recreate it by flying parabolas in a plane. This works, but only for thirty seconds at a time. NASA does this with a Reduced Gravity Aircraft (popularly known as the "Vomit Comet"). It's useful for microgravity acclimation and limited testing but not for rehearsing multi-hour spacewalks. So the second rehearsal strategy comes into play: build the largest pool in the world and go swimming—exactly what NASA did.
Water is relatively dense stuff, so you can simulate microgravity in a pool by putting an astronaut into a suit and adjusting that suit's weight until it neither floats nor sinks—making it neutrally buoyant. That, essentially, is why the NBL was built. It's a simple premise that requires complex execution. To properly train for microgravity, everything needs to be neutrally buoyant—the astronauts, their tools, and anything they will manipulate while underwater. You need people and facilities to build all these floating tools and mock-ups. Plus, you need a pool big enough to hold a mock-up of the thing you're training to spacewalk around.
The astronauts, stars of today's show, now enter the facility. Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency and Chris Cassidy of NASA's astronaut corps wear white tube-filled liquid cooling garments and blue paper surgical booties. Everyone heads for one of the test coordinator control rooms for the pre-dive briefing; I find an unobtrusive spot from which to take pictures and end up near a small spread of coffee and Einstein Bros. bagels. Parmitano's shaved head and slight goatee make him appear somewhat sinister, but the Italian cracks a smile at the divers and then makes directly for the bagels. Cassidy is utterly laid back, looking almost sleepy—which he might be, because it's a hair before 0800 and he's likely been up for hours already getting prepped for the dive.
The NBL folks all do a valiant job of not noticing me; everyone focuses on the small projector screen in the back of the room. Parmitano munches his bagel through the briefing. It's the last food he'll get for six hours—once the astronauts are in the pool, they stay in the pool until the test is complete.
The mission briefing
The briefing is short since the room is full of practiced professionals who have done this many times before. One of the test coordinators (TCs) outlines the dive, and astronauts Cassidy and Parmitano listen intently. They will shortly be underwater, moving on and around the enormous mock-up of the International Space Station, to practice routing a power cable needed to make a future connection to the Russian Nauka module (currently set to launch in 2014). After that, they will practice performing maintenance on one of the delicate and complicated rotary joints that attach the solar arrays to the Integrated Truss Structure and allow the long panels to move about. The TC talks through the planned dive, describing objects and tasks in terms of their location and orientation to the ISS's orbital plane—port, starboard, nadir, zenith.
After the PowerPoint presentation ends—yes, NASA uses PowerPoint, just like any other office—attention turns to the front of the room. The dive team lead reminds the divers about lighting conditions and requests that the safety divers give the camera divers adequate room to document the astronauts' activities. The dive will have numerous "translations"—the astronauts will move quite a bit from place to place on the mock-ups—so the camera divers are instructed to plan their routes accordingly. The lead reminds the divers to take a spare air tank with each of them. The test director then performs that most iconic of NASA activities: the go/no-go callout.
The final station call is set at 8:20am and the room begins to disperse. Parmitano and Cassidy—referred to as "EV1" and "EV2" in the callout—quietly talk with some of the NBL workers. I slip back downstairs, walking across the pool deck to the other side, next to the four yellow pneumatic jib cranes that will lower the suited astronauts into the pool.


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Remember how our friends on the left were so appalled that the Michigan state legislature passed a right-to-work law? How about in just-across-the-lake Illinois, that liberal bastion and home of President Barack Hussein Obama?
Unions blast state on plans for underfunded pensions
By Rick Pearson, Chicago Tribune | 1:26 p.m. CST, December 19, 2012
A coalition of public employee unions issued a report today blasting state legislation to address their vastly underfunded pension systems and offering instead to make increased worker contributions if lawmakers raised $2 billion by ending tax benefits to corporations and imposing new taxes.
Appearing at the James R. Thompson Center, members of the We Are One coalition said plans backed by Gov. Pat Quinn and another proposal supported by a bipartisan group of lawmakers would violate the state constitution by reducing pension benefits already guaranteed to workers. They predicted such a change would be overturned by the courts.
Moreover, the group said the plan Quinn was advocating would "cause deep harm to working and retired state employees and teachers, negatively impact the Illinois economy and yet still not solve the state's primary pension problem — the failure to regularly fund its annual required contributions."
The unions said their offer to require state workers and teachers to pay 2 percent more toward their retirement was conditional upon the state making an "ironclad guarantee" in state law that government fund its pension obligations.
To help fund those obligations, the unions proposed eliminating several corporate tax benefits as well as imposing new taxes on auto trade-ins, satellite TV service and downloaded digital entertainment. The new funds also could be used to help offset cuts in other public social services, the group said.
More at the link.
Illinois is an already-highly-taxed state, with significant companies considering leaving the state due to the already-passed increases in corporate taxes. Here's another story:
Illinois Among Nation's Worst State Business Climates, According To CEO Survey
Illinois has been struggling to keep big companies in the state since Illinois Governor Pat Quinn approved an income tax increase in January. Quinn has been widely criticized for the move, and a new survey ranking Illinois among the worst business climates in the U.S. will likely provide fodder to the naysayers.
According to a survey released Monday, California, New York and Illinois have the "least favorable business climates" to corporate executives in the U.S. Nearly 25 percent of the 322 corporate executives surveyed said Illinois was unfavorable due to high taxes and "anti-business climate/regulation."
"With the battle for business more intense than ever, states and their economic development organizations need to pay close attention to the results of this survey," Development Counsellors International (DCI) President Andrew T. Levine said in a statement. "Whether accurate or misguided, perceptions about a location's business climate often play a crucial role in site selection decisions and where companies invest money and create jobs."
Texas, North Carolina and South Carolina had the most favorable business climates, according to the survey.
More at the link. But Illinois' business climate is so bad that the family of an Illinois state senator is moving their business out-of-state!
Mike Frerichs is running to keep his seat in the 52nd District Senate seat from Champaign County. He clams he's all about small businesses in Illinois. Yet, things have gotten so bad during histerm in office that his own family is moving their business out of Illinois and into Indiana.
On the main page of his Senate website, Frerichs is all proud of the "job-creation program" he had a hand in but the best "job-creation program" would be to make Illinois more business friendly and tax-hike-Mike has no desire to do that at all.
The business climate in Illinois under Frerichs and Democrat Governor Pat Quinn is so bad that even Frerichs' own family is moving its business out of the state.
Recently The Champaign News-Gazette reported that Frerichs cousin moved his trucking business from Illinois over to Covington, Indiana.
Frerichs' cousin admitted that it is all true and that Illinois' horrid business climate drove him out of the state.
Readers will not be surprised to learn that Mike Frerichs is a Democrat.
Illinois is doing just what our friends on the left say government should be doing as far as taxes and the economy are concerned, and the result is a loss of businesses, a state government which cannot fund its pension system, and calls for even higher taxes. Simply put, the Democrats' economic policies are being put into practice, and they are not working!
The section above the line was published on THE FIRST STREET JOURNAL on December 21st. Today, I found this on Patterico's Pontifications:
Chevron Moves Hundreds of Employees to Texas from California
Patterico @ 10:32 pm
Chevron Corp. will move as many as 800 jobs to Houston from its California headquarters to support its exploration and production operations, the company told employees Thursday.
The oil giant will maintain its corporate headquarters in San Ramon – just east of San Francisco – where 6,500 employees work.
In an email to its workers, Chevron said jobs moving to Houston include employees in support groups involved with technology, procurement and business development.
"Moves in these groups are expected to take place over the next two years to support our growing upstream business," the company email said.
I wonder how many businesses are relocating employees from Texas to California. Somehow, I suspect not many.
An interesting move. Chevron is moving support jobs to Houston, which will improve efficiency and (presumably) lower costs. "Moves in these groups are expected to take place over the next two years to support our growing upstream business," the company e-mail stated, and it makes sense that such jobs would be closer to the physical activity involved. The corporate leadership remains in California, so most of the top executives don't have to move.
California and Illinois are both following the Democrats' preferred model for government: unsupportably high government spending, and a high tax regime. Now the Pyrite State is losing another 800 good jobs. Those jobs might or might not have been moved anyway, even if California were governed better, but the anti-business attitude on the Left Coast couldn't have helped swing the decision toward keeping the jobs in San Ramon.


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When someone's personality is altered by a brain injury, has the person changed or has the incident brought out what was there all along? Alix Kates Shulman explores stimulating questions like these in To Love What Is: A Marriage Transformed (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 192 pp., $22), a memoir of her life with her husband after he fell nine feet to the floor from a sleeping loft and survived with limits resembling those of advanced Alzheimer's disease.
Shulman tells how, in the months after Scott's accident, she came to understand the Latin phrase amor fati, which means "to love what is" or "to love your fate." She writes with insight of the physical and emotional complexities of her husband's traumatic brain injury (TBI), including its effect on their sex life. And she describes the incompetent care her husband received from mental-health professionals at a good hospital and her amazement on learning that she could fire them. That section alone might surprise relatives of physically ill people for whom doctors have prescribed psychiatric care that the patients will have to pay for if their insurers won't. Shulman has posted a generous amount of material adapted from the book on her Psychology Today blog, Love and Dementia, and the first chapter appears on her publisher's site.
© 2009 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.


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The University of Colorado has agreed to a 10-year contract with Levy Restaurants to provide catering and concessions at Folsom Field and the Coors Events Center on game days and for all non-game-day events.
The deal has a five-year option after 10 years and replaces a partnership with Centerplate, which had provided the same services at Folsom Field since the east side expansion of the stadium in 2003.
"We are excited about our partnership with Levy," George said in a press release. "They are known in this industry for the quality of their food and their hospitality is excellent. We are looking forward to new opportunities as we begin our long-term relationship with Levy."
Levy is partnering with CU to design improved concession areas for CU fans in Folsom Field as part of the athletic department's $143 million renovation and construction project in and around the stadium. Athletic director Rick George hopes to begin the project later this spring, possibly as soon as a ground breaking on April 12, the day of the spring football game, with a target for completing in August of 2015.
In addition to providing catering services in the suites and club seating areas on the east side of Folsom Field, Levy will add similar hospitality services in the new end zone club George and his team have planned for the north end zone and the new terrace area in the northeast corner of the stadium.
CU sports information director Dave Plati said plans for the end zone club include making alcohol available in that area of the stadium. The only parts of the stadium where football fans can purchase alcohol now are the suites and club seats on the east side and the Flatirons Club on the west side.
Plati estimated approximately 3,300 fans have access to alcohol during a sold out game now. He estimated the end zone club will seat as many as 1,000 fans. He said its not known at this time if alcohol will be available on the terrace when the stadium expansion is completed.
Texas began selling beer at its sporting events this winter and spring and is considering selling beer throughout its football stadium in the fall. If it does decide to make beer more widely available throughout its stadium on game days, it will join schools such as fellow Big 12 Confernece partners Iowa State and West Virginia and Big Ten member Minnesota, which have done so in recent years.
There are no plans at Colorado at this time to make beer or other alcohol available throughout Folsom Field.
Levy Restaurants has provided food and hospitality for the suites, club seats and press room at the Pepsi Center in Denver since it opened in 1999.
Contact staff writer Kyle Ringo at email@example.com or twitter.com/kyleringo.
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Climber Unclips From Anchor, Falls to Death
On February 4, Ian Mack, 23, OF Appleton, Wisconsin, started up the route Paradise, a four-star 5.9 at the Banana Belt crag, Owens River Gorge, a popular sport-climbing area on the East side of the Sierra Nevada.
On February 4, Ian Mack, 23, of Appleton, Wisconsin, started up the route Paradise, a four-star 5.9 at the Banana Belt crag, Owens River Gorge,
a popular sport-climbing area on the East side of the Sierra Nevada.
Mack, a climber with two to three years' experience, successfully, though shakily, navigated the dead-vertical route, clipping its 12-odd bolts. He arrived
at a set of stainless-steel hooks with spring-loaded gates, a common anchor type at the Gorge.
To lower, Mack would simply have had to drop his lead cord into the hooks, but he clipped his cordelette to bolts above the fixed hooks, clipped a locking
carabiner to the cordelette and clipped his rope.
According to Aidan Loehr, a guide for American Alpine Institute who was climbing a route next to Paradise, Mack clearly yelled, Off belay.' Mack's
girlfriend, who was belaying, took him off belay and stepped back to take a picture of him.
Seconds later, Loehr saw Mack, still tied to the rope, free fall 120 feet to the ground. Nearly a dozen climbers rushed to evacuate Mack, but he died of
his injuries at the hospital in nearby Bishop, becoming the first fatality at the Gorge.
Paradise is well bolted and equipped with lowering hooks and a bolted toproping station to save wear and tear on the hooks. A 70-meter rope will
lower you back to the belay ledge, about 15 feet off of the ground. According to a climber who had done the route just prior to Mack, the belayer can
see the climber for the first three or four bolts, but after that the climber is out of sight and you have to communicate verbally.
Typically, if you were going to lower off Paradise, you would drop your rope into the hooks, yell, "Take," and be lowered by your belayer. While
no one will ever know with certainty what Mack, who was a first-timer to the Gorge, had in mind, the fact that he ignored the hooks and clipped his
cordelette to the bolts and clipped his rope through this with a locking carabiner suggests that he intended to toprope the climb, and clean the station
later. With that in mind, Mack either meant to be lowered, and said "Off belay," when he meant to say "Take," or correctly said "Off belay," and intended
to rappel. In the latter scenario, which is the least likely, he may have failed to correctly clove-hitch into the anchor. If he only looped the rope
through the locking carabiner, instead of hitching it down (a mistake that would be easy to make), when he leaned back at the hanging stance the rope
would have pulled through the carabiner with almost no resistance. Since Mack did not have a daisychain or sling fixed to his harness, anchoring in
with a clove-hitch or a figure-8-on-a-bight would have been the only way for him to secure himself.
A contributing factor may have been Mack's apparent rattled mental state. Although he was wearing a helmet, an indication that he was safety conscious,
witnesses say he sketched up the route. When you are stressed, it is easy to make absent-minded mistakes, such as yelling out the wrong belay command.
Mack's girlfriend initially thought she might have taken him off belay when she was supposed to lower him, but witnesses clearly heard him say, "Off
belay," and felt the accident was no fault of hers.
MISCOMMUNICATION between the belayer and climber is a common cause of accidents, often fatal.
When the climber and belayer will not be able to see one another, such as on Paradise, clearly stating — before the climber leaves the ground
— whether the climber intends to lower or rappel is crucial. Novice climbers in particular should heed this advice, and when other route options abound,
avoid climbs where communication can be a problem.
As an extra precaution, even when the leader yells, "Off belay," the belayer can keep the leader on, and feed the rope through the belay device all the
way to the end. This might be annoying for the climber, who struggles to tug up the rope and rig the rappel, but guarantees that he is never off belay
until all the rope has played out and the intent of the leader is clear.
Last, preventing an accident of this type is as simple as never weighting
the rope until you clearly hear a got you from your belayer. In this case, the lack of a reply would have alerted Mack to the fact that he had issued the
wrong command, and was in fact no longer on belay.


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UPI has an interesting write-up on new research by Jay Goldstein, a kinesiology doctoral student at the University of Maryland School of Public Health. Goldstein links persons susceptible to road rage with those who get upset while watching their kids play youth soccer. We excerpt the piece below.
* * *
Ego defensiveness, one of the triggers that ignites road rage, also kicks off parental "sideline rage" at a child's soccer game, U.S. researchers said.
The study, published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, said that if a person has a tendency to become upset while driving, he or she is more likely to be the kind of parent who explodes in anger at a child's sports matches.
Jay Goldstein, a kinesiology doctoral student at the University of Maryland School of Public Health, surveyed 340 predominantly white middle-class parents at youth soccer games in suburban Washington, and found parents became angry when their ego got in the way.
"When they perceived something that happened during the game to be personally directed at them or their child, they got angry," Goldstein said in a statement. "That's consistent with findings on road rage."
Goldstein defines control-oriented people as far more likely to take something personally and flare up at referees, opposing players and even their own children, than autonomy-oriented parents, who take greater responsibility for their own behavior.
* * *
For the rest of the piece, click here. For some related Situationist posts, see "Do Car Bumper Stickers Signal Driver Aggression?," "The Psychological Toll of Automobile Traffic," and "Car Bonding."


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September 27th, 2011
Why young Christians aren't waiting anymore
By John Blake, CNN
(CNN) -True love doesn't wait after all.
That's the implication in the upcoming October issue of an evangelical magazine that claims that young, unmarried Christians are having premarital sex almost as much as their non-Christian peers.
The article in Relevant magazine, entitled "(Almost) Everyone's Doing It," cited several studies examining the sexual activity of single Christians. One of the biggest surprises was a December 2009 study, conducted by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, which included information on sexual activity.
While the study's primary report did not explore religion, some additional analysis focusing on sexual activity and religious identification yielded this result: 80 percent of unmarried evangelical young adults (18 to 29) said that they have had sex - slightly less than 88 percent of unmarried adults, according to the teen pregnancy prevention organization.
The article highlights what challenges abstinence movements face. Movements such as "True Love Waits," encourage teens to wear purity rings, sign virginity pledges and pledge chastity during public ceremonies.
Yet many of these Christian youths eventually abandon their purity pledges, Relevant's Tyler Charles concludes in the article. Tyler talked to people like "Maria," an evangelical woman who said she wanted to wait until marriage to have sex.
CNN's Belief Blog – all the faith angles to the day's top stories
But she said she started having sex with her college boyfriend when she turned 20 because nearly everyone, even most of her Christian friends, were having sex.
Relevant theorizes about why it's so hard for so many young Christians to wait, including the saturation of sex in popular culture, the prevalence of pornography and a popular "do what feels good philosophy."
Yet the article also asks a question that rarely comes up in discussions about abstinence movement. Relevant notes that in biblical times, people married earlier. The average age for marriage has been increasing in the U.S for the last 40 years.
Today, it's not unusual to meet a Christian who is single at 30 - or 40 or 50, for that matter. So what do you tell them? Keep waiting?
Scot McKnight, author of "The Jesus Creed," and "One.Faith: Jesus Calls, We Follow," acknowledges that young, single Christians face temptations that their counterparts in the biblical age didn't face.
He tells Relevant:
So what should a Christian parent or youth pastor do? How do they convince more young Christians to wait until marriage, or should they stop even trying?
soundoff (5,770 Responses)
About this blog
The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.


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Radcliffe explores daring territory in new film
PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — Daniel Radcliffe has really left Harry Potter behind with a startling and explicit Sundance Film Festival role as poet Allen Ginsberg.
"Kill Your Darlings," the "Harry Potter" star's first film at the independent-cinema showcase, premiered Friday at Sundance and puts Radcliffe into daring territory.
His young Ginsberg is initiated into booze and drugs, has oral sex performed on him in a library, makes out with one man and gets naked for sex with another man.
In a session with the audience after the premiere, Radcliffe was asked if he chose the role because it fit the "weird stuff" he likes.
Radcliffe said it was the second time that day he was asked the same question and conceded his tastes can run outside the mainstream.
"Films like this don't get made unless everyone involved loves them," Radcliffe said.
The film recounts a little-known story of murder involving Ginsberg's circle of friends, including fellow future beat heroes Jack Kerouac (Jack Huston) and William S. Burroughs (Ben Foster).
Dane DeHaan co-stars as Ginsberg idol and intimate Lucien Carr, and the cast also includes Michael C. Hall, Elizabeth Olsen and Jennifer Jason Leigh.
Director John Krokidas said Radcliffe became his muse on the film and that it was clear within minutes of their first meeting that the part was his.
Krokidas said young Ginsberg starts as a dutiful son who spends his time taking care of others but eventually spills over with repressed passion.
"By the end of the movie, he is a poet and a rebel," Krokidas said. "I had a feeling Dan might be able to relate to this."


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Eder Cetina has worked with LACMA both as an artist and fabricator. He's been a featured artist at our Late Night Art events, overseen installation of large-scale graphics pieces in our collection, and has created graphic elements for many LACMA exhibitions, such as the title wall to the recent Phantom Sightings exhibition, just to name a few. He's also built a vibrant following with the street art/hip hop scene around Los Angeles, recently appearing/painting at the Ludacris show at the L.A. Coliseum. We've worked on a number of projects together both at LACMA and around L.A.—here's a bit more about him.
How did you become a liaison for LACMA and other major museums here in Los Angeles, like the Getty and MOCA?
I had been working with Olson Visual managing large print and fabrication projects for Rodney Graham, John Baldessari, Sharon Lockhart, and the list goes on. All of a sudden, the more events and openings I attended, the smaller the art world became and I would just get in where I would fit in. I did small freelance projects here and there, just found myself working with designers, artists, and curators from all over the globe. My relationships with the California Association of Museums and the American Association of Museums and their many affiliates have really helped to further my goals and visions in the museum field.
You alternate your role as designer, fabricator, and artist. Is there a distinct line between them?
Yes—and I've crossed them all. As I see it, as a designer I collaborate. When I take the role of fabricator, I cooperate. And as an artist, I just create and do just what I please.
What are some of the most memorable projects you've worked on at LACMA?
I would say that there are a few that stand out, like my very first show here at LACMA, Made in California—NOW, and Diane Arbus Revelations. I also had the honor of producing a hand-painted mural for the Dalí exhibit. More include working on Tim Hawkinson's first major museum survey, and Magritte and Contemporary Art in 2006. Mostly recently, I worked on most of the graphic elements for Art of Two Germanys/Cold War Cultures. It's really hard to pick just one because I've worked on almost every show at LACMA in the past five years.
What has been the most difficult install, either here or within your professional career?
By far, Barbara Kruger's Shafted [a three-story-high artwork installed in BCAM's elevator shaft], which we worked on for three weeks straight, day and night, practically living inside of BCAM. From pre-press to install, it was by far one of the most challenging and satisfying installations. And as a bonus, it was great to see new pieces of art from the Broad Foundation arrive daily before the grand opening.
I have seen you act as a curator, artist, and organizer for both traditional art shows and freeform "intervention" installs/projects. What draws you to these projects?
I just feel the need to creatively express myself whether as an artist creating a new piece or a curator working with an up-and-coming artist. I just have a passion for creative expression and the arts.
Do you collect art from your peers, or more established artists?
Yeah, I got a nice li'l collection. I'm really into street art… I just picked up a Fafi painting and another Barry McGee piece.
Does Los Angeles influence your work?
F**k yeah! The complexity of glamour and dirt—it's like a love/hate relationship. The further I try to get away, the closer it pulls me in.
You worked on some of the largest projects LACMA has ever produced, but some of your contributions have ultimately been scrapped once the shows are over. Is that hard to deal with?
It's sad for a minute, but then I get too busy on the next project to really dwell on it. That's why documenting every project has become so important to me. I've also partnered up with a couple of great recycling companies to try to reuse most of the waste materials these large exhibits produce.
Paul Wehby, Graphic Designer